The present invention relates to a pneumatic tire, more particularly to a tread pattern of a motorcycle tire suitable for street use which can improve the rolling resistance.
In recent years, in view of the global environment issues, a motorcycle tire having less rolling resistance is receiving increasing attention in order to decrease the fuel consumption similarly to automobile tires.
Japanese patent application publication JP-A-2007-131112 (US-2007-102083-A1) discloses a motorcycle tire whose tread center region is made of a low hysteresis loss rubber having a small loss tangent so that the heat generation and energy loss in the tread center region is decreased to thereby improve the rolling resistance. In such motorcycle tire, however, there is a tendency that the road grip performance is impaired due to the low hysteresis loss rubber disposed in the tread center region and it is difficult to improve the steering stability.
Also the rolling resistance can be decreased by using a high modulus rubber in the tread center region. In this case, however, there is a problem such that the ride comfort is considerably deteriorated. Further, the road grip performance is also deteriorated.